


Devil in Her Heart

by Ravenhoot



Series: Sympathy For The Devil [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coping, F/M, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Moving On, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24889015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenhoot/pseuds/Ravenhoot
Summary: In the aftermath of Lucifer's death, Maggie tries to cope and move on. In doing so, she meets Nick, who's also dealing with the loss of the archangel. They're the only two people who truly mourn Lucifer and together, they find a way to help one another heal.This fic basically pretty much ignores canon.
Relationships: Lucifer (Supernatural)/Original Female Character(s), Nick/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Sympathy For The Devil [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1389022
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

Maggie stood in line at the small, crowded coffee shop and tapped her foot impatiently. While she wasn’t technically late, she didn’t like showing up at the last minute. Her boss had told her that she didn’t have to keep a timesheet and could come and go as she pleased. So long as the work was done, she could make her own schedule. Still, Maggie had told Jess that she would be there every morning by nine. In retrospect, she should have reconsidered that offer after remembering what her… family did for a living.

After everything that had happened recently, Maggie told the boys she needed something more stable. More consistent. The very next day while getting coffee—in this very coffee shop—Maggie noticed a flyer advertising for help needed at a nearby stable. Given her previous experience on a ranch, Maggie had barely been in the interview for two minutes before she had been offered the job.

The position included room and board if she wanted it, and in the aftermath of the battle with Micheal, she had been relieved to have a place to escape to. She had only intended to stay at the stable occasionally, but one night turned to two and before she realized it, she had been there six weeks. She knew the boys and Charlie wanted her to come back. But she just couldn’t… not yet. She was fine when other people were there with her… but the idea of being there alone with her thoughts and memories scared the hell out of her. No, Maggie had needed to get away for a while… and returning to what felt natural to her had been a good escape. 

Her phone buzzed as she waited in line for her coffee. Retrieving it from her back pocket, she saw that Dean was calling. Again. 

Dean had called her three times since last night. Normally, she would think something was wrong and rush over to the bunker… but he’d left a voicemail saying he was just checking in with her and letting her know that Jack and Charlie missed her.

Which was Dean’s way of saying he also missed her, though he’d never come out and say that. She watched the phone ring until it went to voicemail. She still didn’t know what to say to any of them. Instead of leaving a message, Dean sent her a text when she didn’t answer the phone. 

**Hey kiddo. We miss your face. Any chance you can swing by for dinner?**

Maggie sighed. Her immediate response would have been no, but she scolded herself. The boys were her family. And after her parents died when she was in college, they were the only family she had left. Plus, she reasoned with herself, it had been over two weeks since she had seen anyone at the bunker. It was time she went back. She typed a response to Dean.

**Only if it’s sushi.**

“Coconut caramel coffee for Maggie?” The barista called out. 

Maggie retrieved her coffee with a mumbled thanks and eased her way out of the crowded coffee shop. As she walked down the block to her truck, another text from Dean binged her phone. 

**You got it kiddo. Oh, make sure there’s no hay in your hair. Someone we want you to meet.**

Maggie had just gotten into the driver’s seat of her truck and put the key in the ignition. She stared at her phone incredulously. There was no  _ way _ they would try to set her up with anyone this soon after—

“It hasn’t even been two months!” Maggie hissed aloud to no one.

Someone honked their horn and she waved impatiently out the window. She knew whoever it was wanted her parking spot, so she pulled out onto the road and drove toward the stable in silence. Surely the boys weren’t trying to set her up. People were coming and going at the bunker all the time. Surely they just wanted to introduce her to a new friend or hunter or something and didn’t want her showing up looking like a ragamuffin. Yes, that was it. 

_ It had better be _ , Maggie thought as she pulled the truck through the gate. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After finishing her chores for the day, Maggie sent a text to Jess letting her know that she was leaving early for the day. She took a quick shower, braided her hair, and pulled on a clean pair of jeans with a tank top and flannel shirt. She called in the sushi order, which she would be picking up on her way to the bunker. 

Roughly thirty minutes later, she had parked in the bunker’s garage, mostly out of spite. Dean had insisted that her “redneck truck” wouldn’t fit and Maggie had been determined to prove him wrong. She sent him a text asking for help carrying the food. Sushi for seven people took up quite a few take-out containers, after all. 

A squeal of delight told Maggie that Charlie had been one of the ones sent to help her. Charlie grabbed Maggie roughly around the waist and hugged her so fiercely that Maggie’s feet came up off the floor. 

“Oww, Char! Christ, I missed you too!”

Jack lingered quietly behind Charlie, patiently waiting his turn. After checking to make sure she didn’t have any cracked ribs, Maggie opened her arms to hug Jack. 

“I missed you too, ya know,” she said to him. 

“I’m glad you came back,” Jack said, his voice somewhat hollow. 

“What’s wrong?”

Though she knew the answer without having to ask. She cleared her throat and said, “So, who is it the boys want me to meet?”

Jack and Charlie exchanged a nervous glance. 

“If this is a set up, I swear to—”

“It’s not!” Jack exclaimed. “Not really.”

“Jack, shut up,” Charlie said through clenched teeth. 

Maggie rounded on Charlie. “Seriously?”

“I promise it isn’t a blind date,” Charlie said, crossing her fingers over her heart. 

Maggie groaned. “Fine… let’s get this over with.”

“Nice sentiment to seeing your family for the first time in weeks,” Charlie jibed. 

“Just… go,” Maggie said, retrieving two bags of food from the truck. Charlie and Jack picked up the remainder of bags and followed her through the garage into the bunker. 

As they rounded the corner into the library, Charlie called out. 

“Dean! You owe Maggie twenty bucks.”

“There is  _ no way _ that truck fit in the garage!” Dean exclaimed in return. 

“Well, I’m telling you, it’s in there,” Charlie snorted. 

As soon as she set the bags on the long wooden table that bore all their initials, Sam enveloped her in a tight embrace. “We missed you.”

“I’ve missed you guys too,” Maggie admitted softly. 

Dean dug through the bags until he found what he was looking for. “Aha!” He held up a styrofoam take out tray like it was a first place trophy. 

“Uh, Dean? Maggie’s here?” Sam said. “Maybe you wanna hug her or something?”

“Kimchi fries first,” Dean said. “Hug later.”

Maggie popped her hands on her hips in mock offense. “I’d be offended, but I know how serious you are about food.”

“Only long-term relationship I’ve ever succeeded at,” Dean said as he popped a french fry covered in bulgogi beef into his mouth. “C’mere kiddo.”

He hugged Maggie tightly. Over Dean’s shoulder, she saw Mary and Castiel enter from the other end of the hall. 

“Hey guys,” Maggie greeted once Dean released her. 

“Hi, Maggie,” Mary said, giving her a hug of her own. 

“Hey, Cas.”

“Maggie,” the angel replied with a tilt of his head. 

Maggie silently counted the people in the room. Dean had texted Maggie earlier when she ordered food, telling her to get sushi for seven and a few appetizers. She made sure to get the Kimchi fries, knowing they were Dean’s favorite. Still, as she silently scanned the room, something seemed off. She ticked them off as she counted in her head. 

Dean, Sam, Jack, Charlie, Mary, and herself made six. Castiel would have made seven, but he was an angel. 

“Okay, what am I missing?” Maggie puzzled. “Unless something changed, Cas doesn't eat, but you told me to get food for seven people?”

Instantly, everyone looked uncomfortable. Maggie could practically feel the tension in the room thicken. 

“Come on, guys,” she pleaded. “I can’t take any surprises right now. Someone just tell me what’s going on.”

“You, uh… you know how we said there was someone we wanted you to meet?” Sam began tentatively. 

“Yeah…” Maggie noticed Jack slip out of the room as Sam spoke. 

“You’ve sorta…. Already met him. Kinda. But not really,” Sam rambled. 

“How do you sorta kinda not really meet someone?” Maggie asked. “And you said this wasn’t a fix up.”

“It’s not,” Sam insisted. “Just… well, you’ll see.”

Castiel suddenly busied himself with retrieving plates and chopsticks from the kitchen. A moment later, Maggie heard Jack coming back down the hallway. 

Maggie’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. She had no idea what they had all planned and her nerves were completely shot. 

“Maggie,” Jack announced happily, “Meet Nick.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Wha—”

The question died on her lips as Lucifer rounded the corner with Jack. Except, it wasn’t really Lucifer. Just his vessel. Still, Maggie was surprised to see that he’d survived. She hadn’t given it a lot of thought, but she would have expected the archangel blade to kill Lucifer’s vessel too. 

Pain clenched around her heart and squeezed. She knew the man standing in front of her wasn’t her angel, but she had only ever known Lucifer in this form. 

Maggie just stared at him for a long, tense moment. Part of her wanted to scream at them all. How could they think this was a good idea? How could they be so cruel to taunt her with this? Putting the vessel of the angel she had loved in front of her and expect her not to think of him? Even as she wanted to rage, she also found herself inexplicably drawn to him. Lucifer was dead, so why would she be drawn to his vessel? She had no answers for all her questions. She also didn’t have an answer for the one Jack asked next. 

“Does your necklace always do that?”

Maggie looked down and noticed that the diamond which hung around her neck seemed to be glowing softly, a pulsing pink light growing brighter and dimmer in a steady rhythm. Not unlike a heartbeat. 

“I’ve never seen it do this,” Maggie admitted. She felt like she remembered something… but the details were fuzzy. Like trying to remember the specifics of a dream and the longer she was awake, the more indistinct it became. But she felt like she was missing some crucial element. Like a word that was just on the tip of her tongue that she couldn’t quite think of.

The sound of metal chopsticks clinking against glass plates brought Maggie back to the present. She turned around to face the group. She grabbed Sam’s arm roughly and pulled him up from the table. “Come on, Jolly Green Giant. I need your help getting something in the kitchen.”

Once they reached the kitchen, Maggie shoved the door shut and rounded on him. 

“What are you playing at?”

“Nothing… I just thought it might be good for you to talk. Both of you.”

“Why on _earth_ would you think it would be a good idea for me to talk to him? Don’t you realize that all I can see when I look at him is—”

“Lucifer?”

“Yes!”

“That’s exactly my point, Mags,” Sam said gently. 

Maggie huffed a frustrated sigh as she leaned against the counter. Sam came over to stand beside her and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Nick was in a bad way after— Well, he was near death. Honestly, we were shocked he was still alive since angel blades kill both the angel and the vessel.”

Maggie stiffened beside him. She didn’t need to be reminded. 

“But I guess archangel blades are different,” Sam pondered aloud. “Anyway, we didn’t know what to do with him. It wasn’t like we could take him to a hospital and say ‘Hey this guy who was presumed dead eight years ago is still alive but dying again. Fix him.’ So we brought him back here. Cas did what he could for his physical injuries and he’s just been here ever since.”

Maggie tried thinking about the logistics of that. She remembered the boys telling her that Lucifer’s original vessel was not ideal and that while he was trying to seduce Sam into saying yes, the vessel he’d been occupying—Nick—was wearing away. When Sam succeeded in taking Lucifer back down to the cage, Nick had supposedly died. 

Then Crowley managed to locate the Nick-vessel and restore it so that the body could contain Lucifer without withering away. Maggie didn’t want to think about what that process had entailed. Still, she had assumed that it was only a body and that the soul inside had long since gone to Heaven. 

“Do you mean to tell me that Nick has been alive ever since Crowley held Lucifer captive?”

“I don’t know,” Sam answered. “I just know that he’s alive now. And understandably messed up.”

“How—”

“I don’t know,” Sam said again. 

“But… you were possessed by Lucifer too,” Maggie said. Immediately, she regretted her words when Sam recoiled. “I’m sorry.”

“I was possessed by Lucifer for a fraction of time compared to Nick,” Sam said. “I believe Nick eventually began to... like Lucifer.”

Maggie suddenly understood. “That’s why you want me to talk to him? Because out of everyone, me and Jack are the only ones who didn’t hate him.”

“It’s just hard for us to empathize with him, so he’s alone a lot.”

“What about Cas?”

Sam shook his head firmly. “Cas still regrets what happened with Jimmy and his family. He has no words of comfort to offer Nick.”

Maggie sighed. She had just started to get back to feeling like herself. Had only just recently stopped feeling the heart-wrenching pain that came along with thinking about Lucifer. How she was supposed to get over him when she was going to have to _look_ at him, face to face, she had no idea. 

Though she reminded herself, it wasn’t _really_ him. Still, Nick was the vessel Lucifer wore throughout the entire time she had known him.

“This is gonna suck,” she mumbled. 

“Mags, we’re not gonna force you to do it,” Sam said gently. “You can say no.”

She immediately wanted to. But she knew she couldn’t. She and Jack were the only people who had loved Lucifer. And if there was a chance someone else did too, whether by force or choice, he deserved the opportunity to address it just like Maggie did. 

“No,” she said, “I can’t. I owe it to him.”

“To Nick? You don’t even know him though.”

“Not Nick,” Maggie said. “Lucifer.”

Sam’s mouth formed a thin line but he said nothing else and nodded. 

“Come on,” Maggie urged. “I’m sure everyone is talking about us.”

When they emerged from the kitchen, the silence was a little too neat for this group of people who wouldn’t know silence if it smacked them across their faces. Maggie rolled her eyes and sat down between Charlie and Mary. Jack and Nick were on the bench across from her. “Is there any gyoza left or did you all wolf it down while I was in the kitchen?” Maggie asked tersely. 

Dean pushed the tray containing the potstickers down the long table until it was within Maggie’s reach. 

By the time the appetizers were gone, the group had branched off into two or three separate conversations. Dean, Cas, and Mary were talking together, though Maggie couldn’t hear what they were saying. Charlie was animatedly telling Sam and Jack about the next character she was planning to cosplay. Maggie wasn’t familiar with the fandom. 

“Who is Jennifer?” Maggie asked. 

“No, Yennefer,” Charlie clarified. 

“Weird ass name,” Maggie said. 

“But a total badass chick,” Charlie replied. "She's a mage and she could put me under her spell _any_ day!"

When Maggie still looked perplexed, Nick leaned over the table and said, “Some show called _Witcher._ It’s all the rage right now.”

“Well, _I_ knew it from when it was a video game,” Charlie made sure to announce. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Maggie said. “You’re so hipster.”

“Hipster?!” Charlie shrieked. “How dare you!” She lobbed a sushi roll at Maggie, who ducked. The sushi collided with one of the thick wooden columns behind them. 

“Hey!” Dean hollered. “We don’t waste sushi in this house.”

Charlie snorted and threw a piece at him. Dean caught it and popped into his mouth.

In true family business fashion, Dean’s phone rang a minute later. Maggie could hear a frantic Claire yelling something about wendigos. Maggie shuddered at the memory of the wendigo that nearly killed her. She was only alive to remember it because Lucifer had saved her. 

Sam, Dean, and Cas sprang into action. With hurried words of farewells, they took off down the hall toward the garage to rush to Claire’s aid, Dean pausing long enough to grab three pieces of sushi and stuff one into his mouth on the way out. 

“Welcome home,” Charlie said, a bemused expression on her face as she glanced at Maggie. 

Mary pushed her chair back and announced, “I’m going with them.”

“Be careful!” Maggie called to her as she rushed out the door. 

Charlie surveyed the half-eaten dinner spread across the table. “Well… guess we ought to clean this up. The sushi can go in the fridge I suppose.”

Jack glanced at his watch. “Uhh, Charlie? Did you still wanna go to that movie? Because it starts in twenty-five minutes.”

“I did, but Maggie’s here and—”

“No, go ahead,” Maggie insisted. “It’s fine. We’ll catch up later.”

“You’re sure?” Charlie asked, her eyebrow raised suspiciously. 

Maggie closed up a few of the empty appetizer take out trays and put them back in the plastic bag. “Just toss these in the trash on your way out.”

“I feel bad making you stay and clean up,” Charlie said. “We never see you anymore and now we’re all dashing off and leaving you with clean-up duty. That’s shitty.”

“Well… today is Friday,” Maggie thought aloud. 

“Very good, Mags,” Charlie said sardonically. “You know your days of the week. Your kindergarten teacher will be so proud.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Maggie retorted. “I mean, I don’t have to work tomorrow, so I suppose I can dust off the covers in my old room. Assuming you haven’t given it away by now?”

“We would never,” Charlie insisted. 

“Good, then I’ll stay.”

Charlie hugged her. “Best news I’ve heard all day, Mags. I’ve missed having you around.”

“Chaaaaaaarlie,” Jack called. “You’re gonna miss the previews if you keep on talking.”

“Oh, the fuck I am,” Charlie retorted. “Gotta dash!”

“Bye!” Maggie hollered as Charlie ran down the hall to catch up with Jack. Leaving Maggie alone.

 _Shit. Not alone_ , she reminded herself. 


	3. Chapter 3

When she returned to the library where they had been eating, Nick was quietly collecting plates and chopsticks to carry back to the kitchen. 

“Here, let me help you,” she insisted. 

Nick offered her a tiny smile, causing her stomach to backflip. 

_It’s not him_ , she told herself. _It’s not him._

She had no idea what to say to him. For all Sam’s talk of how she would understand Nick better than anyone, he felt like a complete stranger to her. Which… he was. Except he wasn’t. She remembered what Lucifer had once told her about angels seeing the souls inside human bodies, causing them to be unable to see the outward physical form. She felt like she understood that better now, only in reverse. She knew this man, even if she didn’t know the soul inside him. A crimson flush heated her cheeks and neck as she realized just _how_ well she knew him. 

They reached the kitchen and each set their handful of dishes on the counter before returning to the library for more. They made three trips in silence until all the dirty dishes were stacked on the kitchen counters. The bunker had no dishwasher, so Maggie retrieved the dish soap and sponges before turning the water on. 

“You know Claire probably didn’t even need the guys’ help, right?” Nick said with a smirk. 

“I’m suspecting that’s true,” Maggie sighed. 

Typical, really. She imagined one of them—Sam, probably—sent a text to Claire telling her to call and pretend she needed help. 

“I wonder if there really was a movie Charlie wanted to see,” Maggie wondered aloud. 

“Now that one was real,” Nick said. “She and Jack have been going on and on about it for over a week.” 

Maggie realized just how much she had missed. Nothing world-changing. Just the daily lives of her friends. Still, if she had still been living in the bunker, it would have been her that Charlie would nerd out with over new movies or conventions. She reached for a plate and began washing. 

“You don’t have to stay here on dish duty,” Maggie said. “I volunteered, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer through it.”

“Nah, I’ll stick around,” he said, taking the clean plate from her hands and drying it. “I mean, the alternative is to go watch TV or read. This place isn’t the most exciting when you’re not allowed to help kill monsters. Not that I’d have any clue how to do that.”

“I can’t imagine how the past few weeks have been for you,” Maggie said sincerely. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, but didn’t want him to feel like she was prying too far into his business. 

“Much like they’ve been for you, I imagine,” he replied. 

Maggie turned her head sharply to look at him. For the first time, she wondered how much about Nick knew about her. 

“I remember… flashes,” Nick clarified. “If I try to piece together full memories, everything starts to slip away. But I'll get a single image, a smell, a place. The most aggravating part is not knowing where or how it fits.”

“What was it like?” Maggie asked. She had tried so hard to hold the question back, but it burned in her mouth until she asked it. 

“Well, I wasn’t exactly conscious for most of it. It was sort of like that enchanted sleep all the fairytale princesses get put under,” Nick explained. “Though every now and then, I’d wake up. I’d have a moment of clarity.”

“Did you ever try to force him out?”

“No,” he replied immediately. “By that point… I wanted him there. I know that probably sounds crazy. None of the others understand it but I just don’t know how else to explain it.”

Maggie stopped scrubbing the plate in her hands, holding it still under the steady flow of water from the tap. She hardly noticed the hot water. 

“I understand,” she said quietly. 

“And that is why they wanted us to talk,” Nick said gently, once more taking the plate from her and drying it with a towel. 

They washed and dried the rest of the dishes in silence. As Nick placed the stack of plates onto the shelf where they belonged, he murmured, “I remember you.”

“What?” Maggie wasn’t sure she heard him properly. 

“I remember you,” he repeated. 

The diamond pendant around Maggie’s neck began to glow again, though instead of pulsing like a heartbeat, this time the glow was steady and consistent. 

“What exactly do you remember?” Maggie asked, the flush returning to her cheeks. She wondered again how deep his memories went. How much he knew. She was suddenly mortified at the thought that the man in front of her might have memories of intimate moments that were not his to remember. 

“I don’t quite know,” Nick answered. “When I met you earlier tonight, it felt like I was meeting someone for the first time, but had previously been shown pictures or videos of that person. I knew the sound of your voice before you spoke. I knew what color your eyes were before I saw you. But I didn’t _know_ you.”

Maggie had gone stone still. 

“Am I making any sense?” Nick said, frustrated. 

“Yes,” she breathed. She suddenly felt extremely exposed as she thought back to all the moments she’d had with Lucifer. Realizing that all of them could have been overseen by Nick. Like someone watching through a tv screen or listening through an open window. 

“Good, because I feel like I’m crazy.” 

“You’re not crazy,” she said, composing herself. “I’m sure it’s extremely frustrating for you. To spend so long in that ‘deep sleep’ and for only flashes of things to come back to you… Well, it would drive me nuts.”

“Nuts,” Nick repeated. “Yeah, I think I’m there.”

Maggie quietly picked at a loose thread on her flannel shirt. 

“Do you miss him?” Nick asked.

“Every day,” she answered softly. “Do you?”

Nick nodded. “You know how people who were supposed to be twins but something happened to the other one? And the person was born alone? How they say they miss their twin even though the other half never developed or was stillborn or whatever. That’s sorta how it feels. Like, this half of me that had always been there is gone now. And I don’t really know how to fill that empty space.”

Maggie wasn't sure what to say to that, so she hoisted herself onto the counter and reached for a dishtowel to fold just for something to do with her hands. 

Nick opened the fridge and grimaced. “The only beer in here is disgusting.”

“What is it?”

“Natural Light.”

Maggie made a gagging sound. “Gross. Check the third cabinet from the left. There’s usually some good booze in there. Unless the guys drank it all and forgot to replenish.”

Nick followed her instructions and smiled as he withdrew two bottles. “Okay, so our choices are whiskey or… whiskey.”

Maggie snorted. “Dean is a simple creature.”

“At least he’s got good taste though,” Nick said approvingly. “Maple bacon bourbon sounds delicious. It’s that or Leadslingers.”

“Hmm, better do Leadslingers,” Maggie replied. “If we drink the last of the maple bacon, Dean might have a conniption.”

Nick pulled two low-ball glasses from a cabinet and poured each of them a generous serving of whiskey. He handed Maggie hers before leaning against the island counter opposite her. 

“I gotta say,” Nick commented, “You’re not at all what I expected.”

“Oh?” Maggie’s eyebrow shot up. “How much did they tell you about me?”

“Not a ton, but from the sound of it, I expected… well, not this.”

“Let me guess,” she drawled, taking a sip and savoring how the liquor burned her throat. “Someone, Dean perhaps, painted this picture that I was this fragile broken thing?”

Nick averted his eyes and took too large of a gulp, which caused him to cough and splutter. 

“I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t get me wrong, I can dissolve into a puddle of heartbreak and sorrow. Have plenty of times before. Probably will a few dozen more times before it’s fully out of my system. But I just get the feeling that’s not what either of us needs right now.”

Nick took a hearty sip from his own glass. “Indeed it isn’t.”

“I’m from the midwest,” Maggie declared. “We have a whole genre of music dedicated to heartbreak and sorrow. No one needs me to add another tune to it. Trust me, I can belt out ‘I Fall to Pieces’ by Patsy Cline like you wouldn’t believe… but I barely know you, so I won’t torture you like that.”

“Much obliged,” Nick said with a chuckle. Maggie realized that it was a sound she hadn’t heard often when Lucifer had inhabited this vessel. Which was a shame, because she found she liked the sound of it. 

Their conversation, which Maggie had feared would be depressing and tense, was just the opposite. She found that Nick was surprisingly easy to talk to. Sure, she had moments where she forgot who he was and thought that Lucifer was standing in front of her. But they would pass and she found herself not nearly as upset as she expected to be. As the bottom of the whiskey bottle grew nearer, Maggie was good and tipsy.

She’d gotten drunk plenty of times following Lucifer’s death, but always by herself. She hadn’t drowned her sorrows with anyone solely because there hadn’t been anyone to empathize with what she was experiencing. But now… Nick understood. 

“Okay, so tell me something you ‘remember,’” Maggie requested. 

“Remember?”

“About me.”

“Oh,” Nick pulled the back of his neck as he considered. “Well…”

Maggie fiddled with the tail of her braid, which was one of her tell-tale nervous ticks. 

“I remember that he loved that,” Nick finally said. 

“What?”

“Whenever you’d play with your braid.”

“Is that it?”

“Most of what I remember is images. Or feelings,” Nick said apologetically. “I remember him feeling guilty when you brought Jack to Indiana.”

“Guilty? Why?”

“Because he was looking forward to seeing you more than Jack.”

Unexpected tears welled in Maggie’s eyes. She blinked rapidly to chase them away, but a few still fell. She recalled the morning they had spent in that Holiday Inn. Before Sam and Dean had showed up. For just a brief moment, she’d had a glimpse of domestic bliss. And she had loved it.

She slid off the counter abruptly, wobbling slightly from the effects of the whiskey. She impatiently swiped at her cheeks to wipe away the tears. 

“I can’t do this,” she announced. 

“But, you asked!” Nick protested.

“I know,” she said. “But I just can’t.”

She shoved past him and out the kitchen into the main corridor. 

“Maggie, wait!” Nick called after her. 

But she didn’t wait. She headed straight for her room, which had been kept exactly as she had left it. Locking the door behind her and collapsing on the bed, she allowed herself to do what she hadn’t done since the night Lucifer died. She sobbed into her pillow until she fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

When Maggie woke up, her eyes were sore. She thought she saw Dean sitting in a backwards chair across from her bed. When she rubbed her eyes and opened them, Dean was still there. 

“The fuck did you do, pick the lock?” She mumbled. 

“Technically, it’s my house.”

“Christ, is nothing sacred anymore?” Maggie complained. 

“Be nice,” Dean insisted. “I brought a peace offering.” He gestured to the table beside her bed where a mug of steaming coffee sat. 

“Hmm… I’m less mad,” she said as she sat up and gripped the mug between her hands. “How’s Claire?”

“Huh?” Dean said, stifling a yawn. 

“That’s what I thought.”

“Look, Mags…”

“I’m not mad at you,” she reassured him. 

“Well, we’re sorry all the same,” he replied gruffly. “You don’t have to talk to him again.”

Maggie was surprised to find herself disappointed. “Oh…”

“You wanted to?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought that far ahead but… yeah, I think I do,” she admitted. 

Dean looked genuinely surprised.

“Not right away,” Maggie rushed to clarify. “Did he tell you about last night?”

“No, the empty bottle of Leadslingers did,” Dean answered. “That combined with your locked door and his wounded puppy expression told me all I needed to know.”

Hot guilt crashed over Maggie. She regretted how she left things the night before. Even though she had only just met Nick and everything between them would forever be uncharted waters, she still wanted to be his friend. Something inside her told her that she needed it… and he probably did too. 

“I just… didn’t think it would be so hard,” Maggie sighed. “Y’know, to talk about him.”

Dean didn’t say anything, but Maggie could sense his discomfort. She rolled her eyes and opted for a change of topic. 

“Is Charlie up yet?”

“Who do you think made you this sissy ass coffee?” Dean replied with a snort. “She’s making breakfast. I’ll tell her to set a place for you.”

He posted it as a statement, not a question. Maggie rolled her eyes again and threw the covers off. After getting out of bed, she took a long sip of coffee, pleased to see that Charlie did indeed know how to make it the way Maggie liked. She dared to glance at her reflection in the small mirror on the wall. 

“Yikes,” she mumbled. Pulling the hair tie from the end of her braid, she began unweaving the strands of hair.

“Don’t primp too long there, Medusa,” Dean teased. “I’ll eat your bacon before I let it get cold.”

“Touch my bacon and you’re a dead man.”

“Better hurry, then,” he replied with a smirk as he left her room. 

Maggie grunted a reply but he was already gone. Once she had completely undone her braid, she combed through her thick wavy hair with her fingers, smoothing out any tangles. She considered putting on just a smidge of mascara but knew the guys would give her way too much shit over it, so she simply put on a bra and followed the smell and sizzling sound of bacon being cooked. 

Crowded around the industrial kitchen island were the usual suspects: Dean, Sam, and Jack all with empty plates waiting for food. Charlie was at the stove, earbuds in as she bopped to her music while she cooked. If Maggie had to guess, Mary and Cas were searching the internet for a case. That just left—

“Where’s Nick?” Maggie asked, hoping she sounded more lightly conversational than she felt. 

Charlie turned around, waving a spatula wildly. “Oh, good! You’re up!”

Maggie could see now that Charlie only had one earbud in. “Good thing I wasn’t talking trash about you.”

“If you were, I’d just give your bacon to Dean,” Charlie smirked. “Nick… I think he’s still in his room.”

“Which is where, exactly?” Maggie wondered. 

Both Charlie and Dean raised their eyebrows at Maggie’s question. She picked up a slice of toast and took a bite before defensively crossing her arms over her chest. “I just mean, this place isn’t infinite. There are only so many rooms and I’m pretty sure they’re all occupied.”

“We uh… sort of converted the dungeon into a bedroom,” Sam said, shifting uncomfortably on the bar stool he was perched upon. 

“The dungeon,” Maggie repeated. 

“Well, we had to put him somewhere,” Sam argued. “It wasn’t like we could just dump him at a hospital with a note pinned to his shirt.”

“No, but that does raise another question,” Maggie said. “When was the last time he left the bunker?”

To that, Sam and Dean exchanged glances but didn’t reply. In fact, neither one of them looked at her. 

“Unbelievable,” Maggie scoffed. “You’re doing the same thing you did with Jack. You guys  _ can’t _ just imprison people here because you don’t trust them going out into public.”

“Easy for you to say, Mags,” Dean barked. “You weren’t here. You went off and quit, leaving us to deal with it as usual. So we dealt with it. Don’t like the way we did it? Well, be my guest to take over.”

“Okay, fight later,” Charlie ordered. “Right now? Bacon.” She laid a platter full of crispy bacon on the kitchen island, though no one reached for any. 

“Look here, I just cooked three fucking pounds of bacon. You assholes better eat it.”

The group scrambled to all take a generous helping before dispersing into various rooms of the bunker. Sam and Dean carried their plates to the library while Jack ate his quietly in the kitchen. Still fuming, Maggie leaned against the counter with her arms crossed. Charlie pushed a plate of bacon over to her. Reluctantly, she picked up a slice and took a savage bite. 

“Damn, this is good,” Maggie admitted. 

“See, bacon fixes all,” Charlie offered. “Don’t be mad at the guys… You know how they are. They just… get very set in their ways.”

“Honestly, though, Charlie. The dungeon?”

“It looks nothing like the dungeon anymore,” Charlie supplied. “It looks like an actual bedroom now.”

“It’s still the dungeon.”

“Why do you care so much?”

Maggie faltered. “I don’t.”

“Really?” Charlie took another bite of bacon. “Because it sure seems like you do.”

“I just… I have a strong suspicion that they haven’t done anything to help him because of who he is,” Maggie admitted. “Or was. Or… whatever.”

Charlie sighed and put her arm around Maggie’s shoulders. “They’ve tried. As best they can. But it  _ has  _ been hard because of their history with him. In truth though, he hasn’t really asked for much. They got him some fresh clothes since he refused to wear anything of Sam or Dean’s. Trust me, they took personal offense to his distaste for flannel.”

Maggie snorted. 

“Aside from that,” Charlie continued. “All he asked for was a computer.”

“A computer?”

“Jack told me he wanted it to try and find out something on his family.”

Maggie shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I didn’t know he had one.”

Suddenly, Charlie looked uncomfortable. “He doesn’t—not anymore. They died, I think.”

Maggie’s blood turned to ice. She wondered just what had happened to Nick’s family… and then decided whether or not she truly wanted to know. 


	5. Chapter 5

Maggie pondered as she finished her breakfast. She regretted her outburst from last night and though she still could only see Lucifer when she looked at Nick, she decided she needed to get past that sooner rather than later. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she really did want to try and be friends with him. She just had this gut feeling that they could be good for one another, but that would never happen if she threw a fit and ran off every time he did something that reminded her of Lucifer. 

Plus, the burning curiosity of what led Nick to even say yes to letting Lucifer in nagged at her. She wanted so badly to ask him about it, but decided that probably needed to wait until they trusted one another a bit more. Slightly impressed by her own boldness, she piled bacon onto a clean plate and let her feet carry her down the hallway that led to the dungeon. 

When the door came into view, she realized that it was in that very room where she had met Lucifer for the first time. Only then, he’d been assuming the form of Castiel, not Nick. The guys had gotten into the habit of referring to that short stint as the Casifer days. 

Maggie snorted at the memory before knocking gently on the door. 

“It’s open,” Nick called from the other side. 

Opening the door, Maggie called out as she entered. “Knock knock.”

She stopped abruptly and stared, her mouth hanging open slightly. Nick was in a pair of sweatpants doing sit ups, his chest bare. 

“Oh, shit,” he muttered, jumping to his feet and grabbing a t-shirt that had been hanging over the back of a chair. “I assumed you were Jack. He’s the only one who knocks.”

Maggie wished she could say she was surprised, though Dean had literally picked the lock to her own bedroom door that very morning. She stood speechless, however, while two thoughts warred for attention in her mind. 

First, she was trying to get ahold of herself. She tried not to blush as she reminded herself that she had seen Nick completely naked while serving as Lucifer’s vessel. Though somehow, he looked… different. Granted, it had been the better part of two months since she’d seen him, but the night they’d spent in Indiana, he hadn’t been so… defined. 

Which led to her second thought. She had chastised the boys earlier for keeping Nick locked up in the dungeon like some kind of prisoner. The fact that Nick was doing sit ups—well, Maggie couldn’t help but compare it to prison behavior. Working out was a common pastime of prisoners simply for lack of anything better to do. 

_ I’ve gotta do something, _ she told herself. 

“You okay?” Nick asked, causing Maggie to realize she had been staring this entire time.

Her cheeks heated as she said, “Fine… I’m fine. I uh, brought you bacon.”

Nick eyed the plate in her hands and chuckled. “So you did.”

“When’s the last time you left this bunker?” Maggie blurted. 

Nick started, clearly not expecting that question from her. He pulled at the back of his neck as he thought. “Uh… when did the guys bring me here after Archangel Smackdown?”

Maggie’s mouth fell open again. “You—you’ve been stuck here this entire time?!”

Nick chuckled again. “It’s not like they’ve chained me to the wall. I just have nowhere to go.”

Maggie thought she saw a flicker of sadness in his eyes as he spoke. A sadness she recognized all too well. When her parents died, Maggie hadn’t known where to go or what to do next. She had no other family and for the first time in her life, she’d known how it felt to be truly alone.

“What about… wherever you lived before all of this,” Maggie said as she gestured around the room. 

“I’m from Delaware,” he said flatly. “But I have nothing to go back to.”

Maggie desperately wanted to ask about his family, but she felt that would be too personal too soon. If he wasn’t ready to willingly volunteer that information, she wasn’t going to pry it from him.

“I’ve never been to the east coast,” she supplied. “The farthest east I’ve been is Tennessee.”

“It’s nice, I suppose.”

“Did it snow there?”

“Yeah, we got a few decent snows each winter.”

Maggie sighed wistfully. “I wish we got snow.”

“What is it with you midwesterners?” Nick smirked. “You guys are all fascinated by snow.”

“Well, when you never get any, it’s more exciting. Just that inherent desire to want what we don’t have, I guess.”

“Hmm…”

Maggie bounced softly on the balls of her feet. “And speaking of things we don’t have, the fridge is barren. I’m gonna have to chew Charlie out for letting it turn into a bachelor’s fridge. I’m gonna make a grocery store run. You wanna come?”

Nick didn’t try to hide his surprise. “You want me to go with you?”

“Sure,” she replied lightly. “I mean, you don’t have to of course. I just thought—”

“No, no,” he rushed on. “I’m dying to get out of this freaking bomb shelter.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not gonna like, haul ass as soon as we get to Tipton’s and start hollering about demons being real, are you?”

Nick drew his finger across his chest in an X motion. “Cross my heart,” he promised.

“Ok, fine then,” Maggie laughed. “Meet you in the garage in ten.”

As she turned to leave the room, she set the plate of bacon on an end table. Pulling her phone from her back pocket, she sent a group text to the rest of the bunker’s inhabitants. 

**Making a grocery run. Not responsible for unspoken snack desires. Speak now or forever hold your starvation.**

She stopped by her room to get her wallet. She never carried a purse—rather, she just carried her phone and money in a small wristlet-style wallet. She paused to check her reflection in the mirror and then wondered where this sudden vanity came from. In truth, she had been surprised that Nick wanted to go with her. She assumed after the previous night, he would avoid her. She certainly would if it she had been him. But perhaps this would be a good thing. She cracked a tiny smile as she headed down the hall. 

When she reached the garage, Maggie couldn’t help but snort when she saw her truck. Dean had cut up a cardboard box and measured the meager distance between the top of the cab and the ceiling. There was less than a foot of clearance. On the box, he had drawn a squished stick figure. 

“Man child,” Maggie muttered, hoisting herself into the bed of the truck so she could reach the cardboard. 

“If I was a betting man,” Nick’s voice echoed in the garage, “I’d say you were talking about Dean.”

Maggie spun around in the truck bed. “And that would be a bet you’d win.”

Nick smirked, causing Maggie’s stomach to backflip. She wondered if she would ever get used to this. She barely knew anything about this man, and yet the smallest thing he did made her heart flutter. 

_ It’s only because to you, he looks like Lucifer did.  _ She reminded herself as she climbed down from the truck bed. 

“This is your truck?” Nick said with a low whistle. 

“Problem?”

“It’s… well, if you were a dude, I’d say you were compensating for something. But, being, ya know, you… It’s somethin’ else.”

It certainly was. Maggie had dreamed of having a big, obnoxious truck all throughout her teenage and college years. When her parents died, they hadn’t had much to leave behind. Maggie had considered moving back into their house but Nebraska just didn’t feel like home anymore. No one she knew lived in Nebraska, so she had made the difficult decision to sell her parents’ house—the home she grew up in—and fully move to Kansas. Most of the money from the sale had gone into savings but she had used some of it to buy herself her dream car.

Everyone at the dealership hadn’t taken her seriously… until she had made her offer to buy with cash. After that, the ferrety salesman handed her the keys enthusiastically. Even though she was over thirty, she climbed up into the white lifted Silverado with a wide ear-to-ear grin as if she was a sixteen-year-old getting their first car. 

The truck had a six-inch lift with thirty-five inch mud tires. And she made sure it wasn’t just a showpony truck. She took it off-road whenever she got the opportunity. And aside from the fun aspect of it, she did put her truck to work. After she had taken on a job at Jess’s ranch, her truck had come in handy on more than one occasion. 

It was mostly impractical, got horrible gas mileage, and most times, Maggie couldn’t reach drive-thru windows or drive-up ATM’s… but she loved it. 

“It certainly is,” Maggie replied. She unlocked it with her keyfob, even though Dean reminded her that locking the vehicle while inside the bunker was redundant. Still, it was a force of habit for her. 

Nick was shaking his head incredulously as he climbed into the front passenger seat. “I’m tall and this thing is giving me a little man complex,” he bemoaned. 

“You’re just not used to redneck life, city boy,” Maggie replied.

“I’m from Delaware!” 

“Which is basically all city,” she retorted with a grin. Putting the key in the ignition, she started the truck up with a roar of the exhaust. 

“It is not! There’s plenty of farms and shit in Delaware,” Nick insisted. “I just happened to live in the city.”

“Whatever you say, city boy.”

“Oh, come on,” Nick whined. “Boy? I’m not nineteen.”

Maggie choked back a laugh as Nick instinctively ducked when Maggie pulled the truck out of the bunker’s garage and onto the road. 

“What else am I going to call you? City man? No, that sounds weird.”

“You could just call me Nick like normal people.”

“City boy, look around,” Maggie gestured to the bunker’s garage entrance they were pulling away from. “Any of this feel normal to you?”

“Fair enough,” he replied with a huff. 

Maggie turned on the radio and scanned the stations until she found a song she liked. Glancing over at Nick, she resented his knowing little smirk. 

“What now?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking like he was fighting back the urge to laugh. 

“Hmm, why do I not believe you?”

“You’re just a little redneck through and through, aren’t you?” He teased. 

“And proud of it!”

“All this twang,” he complained, though he still looked like he wanted to laugh. “Can’t we listen to something a little less achy-breaky?”

“You ought to know the family rule by now,” Maggie chastised. “Driver picks the music. Shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

Nick sighed dramatically. “Fine. Let’s achy-breaky this thing, then.”

Maggie nodded, satisfied. She had barely sung along to two songs when her phone started binging with text messages. Each message appeared on the touch-screen display in her truck and since she was driving, she pressed the button on her steering wheel for the car to read them aloud. 

**Dean bro: waffles cookies whiskey**

**Queen of Cosplay: twizzlers and coke zero**

**Sambo: Something green for once. Please, for the love of Zeus.**

**Mama W.: popcorn. Oh and the pull-apart cheese sticks.**

**Jack 👼😈: bagel bites.**

Maggie just rolled her eyes at the group’s requests, though she couldn’t help but smile. None of the requests surprised her. 

“Do you have a phone?” She asked, suddenly realizing that, having spent the last decade either in Heaven—which was another thing she’d have to add to her list of questions to ask him one day—or possessed by the devil, Nick probably didn’t have one. Considering he asked the guys for a computer, she was willing to bet his answer would be.

“Are you asking for my number? Are we back in junior high?”

“Okay, first, you’re showing your age by calling it ‘junior high.’ And second, no, I’m asking if you even have a phone.”

“No. There’s almost always someone at the bunker, so I didn’t need one?”

“Well, then before we go to Tipton’s, we’re getting you a phone,” Maggie declared.

“Oh,  _ we  _ are huh?”

“I’m not going to let them continue to treat you like a prisoner.”

“I don’t feel like a prisoner,” Nick assured her. 

“I don’t care,” she said adamantly. “You need a phone.”

Nick put up his hands in a surrendering gesture. “I know better than to argue with a woman who’s made her mind up.”

“Got a lot of experience with that?”

“Sarah was just as stubborn as you are.”

As soon as he spoke, he looked down at his lap and Maggie suspected he hadn’t meant to mention his dead wife. Maggie didn’t know the full story, but she did know that Lucifer had gotten Nick to say yes by taking the form of Sarah and coaxing him into it by making him believe he would see her again. 

Maggie tried to remind herself that it had been right when Lucifer escaped the cage for the first time. He’d spent a millenia locked away, devoid of anything or anyone. She liked to think that his time on earth had softened him—given him a bit of humanity. Still, she couldn’t completely deny the fact that he had done some truly awful things, one of which was how he had used Nick’s pain to manipulate him. 

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. And she meant it. 

“It’s not your fault,” he replied, his tone much more somber than it had been moments before. 

“I completely get it if you don’t wanna talk about it, but if you do…”

“I actually think I do,” Nick said softly. 

“Really?”

“Not now,” he clarified. “Later, and after a lot of whiskey. But I do her a disservice by not talking about her. Or Teddy. And of all the people in that bunker, I think you’d understand the most.”

Maggie wasn’t sure what to say to that. 

“I know we ‘just met’ last night, but I feel like I’ve known you longer than that,” Nick said. “I’m sure it’s because of Lucifer, but… you’re just easy to talk to.”

That, Maggie did understand, because she felt the same way. “It’s weird,” she admitted. “Like, there are moments where I definitely feel like we know nothing about each other, but then there are others where I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

“Right,” Nick agreed. “Frankly, I’m relieved you came around when you did. One more night of them giving me sideways glances like I was gonna set them on fire and I might have tried to escape.”

Maggie turned her head sharply to look at him. “You said you didn’t feel like a prisoner!”

“Eyes on the road, Eval Knievel! I don’t, I was just kidding.”

The song on the radio station faded out and another one started. Maggie often wondered how she could forget important details like someone’s name or birthday, yet hundreds upon hundreds of song lyrics remained cemented in her brain. As she drove, she began bopping her head and shoulders in tune with the music, mumbling the lyrics under her breath. 

By the second chorus, she was singing at full volume, earning a bemused smile from Nick. Yet, she wasn’t shy or embarrassed to sing along to the radio as she might have been with someone else she’d just recently met. She truly understood what he’d meant when he said sometimes, it felt like they had known each other for a lot longer than one day.

Once the song ended, the DJ made an announcement about a local festival that was taking place the following weekend before switching back over to music. Maggie immediately recognized the song. 

“Let me guess,” Nick said. “Another favorite?”

“This station does play the best.”

“I’m gonna guess that this one is about liquor, a truck, a woman, or a dog.”

Maggie snorted. “What?”

“Seems to be the most common themes in your twangy music.”

“Don’t hate on my music, city boy.”

“We went over this,” Nick chuckled. “I’m from Delaware.”

“A  _ city  _ in Delaware,” Maggie corrected as she expertly backed the truck into a parking spot.

Suddenly, Nick appeared uncomfortable. Maggie glanced over at him and winced. “Sorry, I’ll lay off the city thing.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that.”

“What’s wrong, then?”

Nick stared at his lap again and when he spoke, his voice was so soft Maggie had to strain to hear… even after she turned the radio off. 

“You ever sit and wonder, ‘how the hell did I get here?’”

Maggie thought of several sarcastic remarks she would have said, including one about Hell actually playing a big role in how they got there, but she could tell from his defeated tone and posture that now wasn’t the time for jokes. 

“Honestly?” She said. “All the time.”

“I envy you,” Nick admitted. “You’ve had your share of hardship, but you seem to have really made a home here. And you have friends.”

Maggie reached a tentative hand out and rested it against his forearm. “You can have those things here too, if you want.”

“I don’t know,” he said, still staring at his lap. “It’s been nearly ten years. I’m pretty sure anyone who knew me in Dover would have reported me missing… or dead by now. And I mean… I was. Sort of.”

His expression wavered, a shadow of something that haunted him passed over his face but an instant later, it was gone. Suddenly, Maggie wondered just where he had been when Sam succeeded in taking Lucifer back down to the cage. From that one haunted look, she didn’t think he’d ever set foot in Heaven. 

Maggie glanced around the parking lot of AT&T and couldn’t help but think that as much as she had wanted to pick his brain about the years he’d been “dead,” this was not the ideal location she had pictured. 

“I just… I feel like a burden,” Nick said with a sigh.

“Why?” Maggie was genuinely perplexed. 

“I’ve been little more than a mobile condo for an archangel for the past year. And before that—” He cut himself off with a shudder. “Well, my point is that I have  _ nothing _ . No bank account, no driver’s license, not even clothes. These are Sam’s,” he said, pulling at the red and black flannel shirt. “I was a normal, average guy before all this and now… according to any government agency, I don’t exist.”

“I think that’s how the guys would prefer it, to be honest,” Maggie said. “But I completely understand why that’s frustrating. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard this is, Nick. I can’t do much about the bank account, but the rest, I can help. If you’ll let me.”

He cocked one eyebrow up. “How, exactly?”

Maggie pushed her asymmetrical bangs out of her face. “Well, I was once a normal, average girl. I went to college and worked on a farm before I met the boys. So, I can help with the transition. If this lifestyle isn’t what you want, I totally respect that and the boys will too. It’s just hard to go back to being normal once you know all the celestial fucked up shit that goes on in this world. Everyone tried to live normal-ish lives. Me, Charlie, Donna, Jody… but eventually, each of us realized that going back to normal felt… lacking. Like, we knew there was more out there and not being part of it felt like we were missing out.”

She took a deep breath and before she could psych herself out of the idea, she continued. “As for the other stuff… the guys get fake ID’s made all the time. It would be nothing to make you a driver’s license. I know it wouldn’t be real but… it’s passable in case you ever get pulled over. And the clothes?”

She looked him over. He was tall, but he wasn’t as tall as Sam. Looking closely, she could tell that the clothes were too big for him and he looked miserable. 

“Plaid really isn’t your thing, is it?”

“Hell no,” he replied with a grunt. 

Maggie chuckled. “Okay, new plan. First, because we’re already here, we’ll get you the phone. Then we’ll go get you some clothes.”

_ I’ve known the guy a day and I’m going shopping with him like we’re moving in together. This couldn’t get any weirder.  _ Just as she had the thought, she remembered that technically, she’d already seen Nick naked. Her cheeks flushed scarlet as she cleared her throat loudly and turned the dial for the air conditioner up. 

“Look, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but—”

“But what?” She interjected. 

“But, I’m broke?” He said flatly. “I’ve been dead for almost a decade. I literally have  _ nothing  _ to my name.”

Maggie’s heart ached for him. Even when she had been at her lowest point, she’d still had the basic things she had taken for granted. A home. A vehicle. A wallet with ID and cash in it. Nick wasn’t exaggerating when he said he had nothing. 

Her mind drifted to the pile of savings she had from selling her parents’ house and land. It was doing nothing besides earning interest in her account. This was something she could actually do something about and feel like she’d really helped. 

“I can help—”

“Absolutely not,” he interrupted her, his voice carrying an edge that had definitely not been there a moment before. 

“Why?”

“I’m not some charity case for you to take pity on.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Maggie barked. “Don’t even start with it. Save us both the time and energy and skip over the part where you feel intimidated or belittled because a woman is offering to help you. You wanna call it a loan to make yourself feel better, fine. But I don’t wanna hear a word of protest if it’s related to your fragile male ego.”

Nick stared at her, his mouth hanging slightly open. 

“What?” She huffed, her cheeks a rosy pink flush. “I’m offering to help because I  _ want to.  _ Not because I think you need charity.”

Nick closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Perhaps she imagined it, but Maggie could have sworn she saw his lips moving as he silently counted to ten. He opened his eyes and slowly, his gaze rose to meet hers. 

She expected him to turn down her offer again, to spout off some crap about how he was a grown-ass man and would figure it out himself. But he surprised her when he let his shoulders droop slightly and said, “Okay, fine.”

He let out a sigh, though whether it was from defeat or reluctant agreement Maggie wasn’t sure. She also wasn’t sure why she was offering to play such a major role in this. She just felt like it was where she was meant to be. What she hadn’t seen was the diamond of her necklace faintly glowing pinkish-red just before Nick accepted her offer.

“Good,” she replied. “Now that’s settled, let’s go get you a phone.”


End file.
